Europeans to Choose Win XP, Vista Browsers Too

Earlier this week we found out about Microsoft's proposal to the EU to provide a "ballot screen" for those installing Windows 7 to choose which browser, if any, will be installed on the system. This was presented as a possible solution for the EU's antitrust investigation into Microsoft's practices surrounding the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows.

According to information dug up by Ars Technica, Microsoft will soon offer current users of Windows XP and Vista the same type of choice to install browsers other than Internet Explorer 8.

The browser ballot program is proposed as "Important" or "High Priority" update for Windows XP and Vista that will run for users who have IE installed and set as the default browser. From there, users will get the option of installing other browsers from a Microsoft-maintained website.

Besides the obvious players of Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera, the ballot screen will reportedly also include other Windows browsers with a usage share of at least 0.5 percent in the European Economic Area (for a total of up to ten different browsers).

This is still in the proposal stage as the European Union has yet to decide whether or not this is satisfactory, but we'll keep you posted.

Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.

I don't know what the EU is up to. As a citizen of an EU member state I don't feel well represented by those who screw with MS so that MS have to screw with us. It's so easy to change to another browser if you really care. It's as easy as Bing Google, Google browser choice, download, install and forget about IE until the next time you (re)install. IE is one of the first programs I use whenever I install windows. I only use it to download firefox and never use it again, but so what. I'm a Linux user primarily and into all the free software idealogies but I don't see why MS shouldn't be allowed to bundle their browser with their operating system.

I don't agree with how it's being handled by the EU but I do think that people need to know there is a choice, 90% of people I meet have not heard of an OS other than Windows or a browser other than IE. But I don't think government/state bodies need to step in at this point, especially since IE and Windows have lost some market share in the last couple of years.

Ideally I would want to see about 3 mayor OSs out there and about 3 mayor browsers (about 25% share each, with other more specialised ones taking up the other 25%), that way people would know there is a choice but without having too many to choose from and not being able to decide, and it would also provide a good amout of competitiveness in the market.

But since I would not want to live in a communist/nationalist country I really think that if it's at all possible leave it to the public/companies.

What the hell are you on about with search engines? This thread is about browsers. Since when is any of this about fairness, common sense or being helpful to the consumer. The ONLY reason the EU has waded into this is because it thinks it can arbitrarily dole out billion dollar fines. As already posted in other threads, allowing other firms to install browsers at install is the worst of all bad options because of the legal precedent it would set.

Imagine during the install you are asked to select your favourite from 12 calculators, 35 notepads, 88 paint programs, 134 solitaires - all because other freeware vendors were allowed to do the same.

Here's a conversation between the EU, MS and the customer ...

EU - "You will include alternative versions of all this list of stuff in your OS"

MS - "You are having a giggle right? There's over 12,000,000 programs here"

EU - "Yes, each one has a legitimate claim to be included because it's something you do already"

People defending M$ should remember that M$ moves into a market, squeezes out the competition then abandons it. If Firefox hadn't come along, you never would have seen IE7 and 8. And M$'s exclusive licensing arrangements (we'll give you reduced price if you only install our products on your hardware) is a blatant abuse of market position that no other company is in a position to do.

There's an inherent contradiction in "free market capitalism". In order to keep the markets free, you need laws to prevent monopolies. Unfortunately the U.S. regulators under Regan and Bush failed to do their duty back when M$ was becoming a monopoly. So stop complaining about the EU. They're just trying to keep the markets somewhat free.

As for the tired, old argument back_by_demand is still using - bundled in applications like simple text editors and calculators don't have a negative impact on an entire ecosystem, the way IE has on the Internet.